Written years ago, this eventually sold to Blood Lite 2 edited by Kevin J. Williamson. It’s a fun piece where things aren’t what they appear to be.

“It all goes back to the time I was bitten by that werewolf.”

Dr. Booster’s pencil paused for a moment on his notepad, having only written a ‘w.’

“A werewolf?”

Tyler nodded. Booster appraised the teenager; pimples, lanky, hair a bit too long for the current style. The product of a well-to-do suburban couple.

“This is the reason your grades have gone down?”

“Yeah. Instead of studying at night, I roam the neighborhood, eating squirrels.”

“I see…and how do squirrels taste, Tyler?”

“They go down dry.”

Booster wrote ‘active imagination’ on his pad.

“What makes you say you were bitten by a werewolf?”

“Because I was.”

“When did this happen?”

Tyler scratched at the pubescent hairs on his chin. “Two weeks ago. I was out at night, burying this body…”

“Burying a body?”

The boy nodded.

“Tyler, for therapy to work, we have to be honest with each other.”

“I’m being honest, Dr. Booster.”

Booster made his mouth into a tight line and wrote ‘uncooperative’ on his pad.

“Fine, Tyler. Whose body were you burying?”

“It was Crazy Harold. He was a wino that hung out in the alley behind the liquor store on Kedzie.”

“And why were you burying him?”

Tyler furrowed his brow. “I had to get rid of it. I didn’t think digging a grave would be necessary. I thought they disintegrated after getting a stake in the heart.”

Booster frowned. “Crazy Harold was a vampire?”

Tyler shifted on the couch to look at him. “You knew? Shouldn’t they turn into dust when you kill them?”

Booster glanced the diplomas on his wall. Eight years of education, for this.

“So you’re saying you hammered a stake into Crazy Harold —”

“It was actually a broken broom handle.”

“—and then buried him.”

“In the field behind the house. And just when I finished, that’s when the werewolf got me.” Tyler lifted up his right leg and hiked up his pants. Above the sock was a raised pink scar, squiggly like an earthworm.

“That’s the bite mark?”

Tyler nodded.

“It looks old, Tyler.”

“It healed fast.”

“Your mother told me you got that scar when you were nine-years-old. You fell off your bike.”

Tyler blinked, then rolled his pants leg back down.

“Mom’s full of shit.”

Booster wrote ‘animosity towards mother’ in his pad.

“Why do you say that, Tyler? Your mother is the one who recommended therapy, isn’t she? It seems as if she wants to help.”

“She’s not my real mother. Her and Dad were replaced by aliens.”

“Aliens?”

“They killed my parents, replaced them with duplicates. They look and sound the same, but they’re actually from another planet. I caught them, once, in their bedroom.”

Booster raised an eyebrow. “Making love?”

“Contacting the mother ship. They’re planning a full scale invasion of earth. But I thought you wanted to know about the werewolf.”

Booster pursed his lips. WWSFD? He appealed to the picture of Sigmund hanging above the fireplace. The picture offered no answers.

“Tyler, with your consent, I’d like to try some hypnotherapy. Have you ever been hypnotized?”

“No.”

Booster dimmed the lights and sat alongside the couch. He held his pencil in front of Tyler’s face at eye level.

“Take a deep breath, then let it out. Focus on the pencil…”

It took a few minutes to bring Tyler to a state of susceptible relaxation.

“Can you hear me, Tyler?”

“Yes.”

The boy’s jaw was slack, and a thin line of drool escaped the corner of his mouth. Booster was surprised at the child’s halitosis — perhaps he had been eating squirrels after all.

“I’d like you to remember back a few weeks, when you told me about burying Crazy Harold.”

“Okay.”

“Tell me what you see.”

“It’s cold. There are a lot of rocks in the dirt, and the shovel won’t go in very far.”

Booster used his pen light to check Tyler’s pupils. Slow response. The child was under.

“What were you digging?”

“Grave. For the vampire.”

Booster frowned. He’d studied cases of patients lying under hypnosis, but had never had one on his couch.

“What about the werewolf?”

“Came out of the field. It was big, had red eyes, walked on two legs.”

“And it bit you?”

“Yeah. I thought it was going to kill me, but Runs Like Stallion saved me.”

“Runs Like Stallion?”

“He’s a ghost of a Sioux brave. The field is an old Indian burial ground.”

Booster decided he’d had enough. He wrote ‘treatment’ in his notebook and went over to his desk, unlocking the top drawer. The plastic case practically leapt up at him. He took it over to Tyler.

“Tyler, your parents are tired of these stories.”

“My parents are dead.”

“No, Tyler. They aren’t dead. They care about you. That’s why they brought you to me.”

Booster opened the case. The gnerlock blinked its three eyes and crawled into Booster’s hand. It would enter Tyler’s mouth and burrow up into his brain, taking over his body.

“Soon, it will all be better. You’ll have no more worries. You’re going to be a host, Tyler, for the new dominant species on this planet. Are you scared?”

“No.”

“Open your mouth, Tyler.”

Tyler stretched his mouth wide.

Wider than humanly possible, crammed with sharp teeth.

The gnerlock nesting in Dr. Booster’s brain crawled out through his neck after the wolf decapitated the host body.

Its eleven legs beelined for the door, antennae waving hysterically, telepathically cursing that quack Freud.

Halfway there, a green ghostly foot came down on its oblong head, smashing it into the carpeting.

The Indian gave the wolf a thumbs up, but Tyler was already leaping out the window, eyes locked on a juicy squirrel in the grass below.